2014 Austrian Grand Prix qualifying

Felipe Massa ended his six-year pole position drought as Williams inflicted a surprise defeat on Mercedes in qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix.

Team mate Valtteri Bottas joins him on the front row of the grid after making a mistake on his final lap which may have cost him his first Formula One pole position.

They relegated Nico Rosberg to third place and Lewis Hamilton will start ninth after spinning off twice in Q3.

Q1

The Mercedes drivers easily progressed into the second part of qualifying without having to use the super-soft tyres. They headed the times with the laps they set on the soft compound, but were split by Daniil Kvyat when the Toro Rosso driver switched to the super-soft tyres.

Adrian Sutil was one of the drivers who made that mistake, and it could have cost him a place in Q2 as he was squeezed out in the final runs.

He was joined by team mate Esteban Gutierrez and the two Marussias and Caterhams as usual.

Drivers eliminated in Q1

17

Adrian Sutil

Sauber-Ferrari

1’10.825

18

Esteban Gutierrez

Sauber-Ferrari

1’11.349

19

Jules Bianchi

Marussia-Ferrari

1’11.412

20

Kamui Kobayashi

Caterham-Renault

1’11.673

21

Max Chilton

Marussia-Ferrari

1’11.775

22

Marcus Ericsson

Caterham-Renault

1’12.673

Q2

Fernando Alonso had a fright during Q2 when he became the latest driver to run wide at the final corner. The Astroturf and bumpy grass had punished several others during practice.

He recovered later in the session to secure a place in Q3, as did team mate Kimi Raikkonen who had been in the drop zone following the first runs.

But the biggest name which failed to make it into the final ten was Sebastian Vettel. The Red Bull driver ran wide at turn three on his final effort, meaning he failed to reach Q3 at their home circuit.

Pastor Maldonado also went out in Q2 after skidding off the track at turn five on his last attempt.

The Mercedes drivers headed the times with Rosberg ahead this time, though he remained slightly unhappy with the balance of his car heading into the shoot-out for pole position.

Drivers eliminated in Q2

11

Sergio Perez

Force India-Mercedes

1’09.754

12

Jenson Button

McLaren-Mercedes

1’09.780

13

Sebastian Vettel

Red Bull-Renault

1’09.801

14

Pastor Maldonado

Lotus-Renault

1’09.939

15

Jean-Eric Vergne

Toro Rosso-Renault

1’10.073

16

Romain Grosjean

Lotus-Renault

1’10.642

Q3

Two sectors into his first flying lap in Q3 everything was looking good for Hamilton. He was fastest of all through both of them, but as he arrived at the troublesome turn eight his car snapped sideways, pitching him onto the run-off.

Ordinarily that would have paved the way for Rosberg to take pole position but the Williams pair were flying on the super-soft tyres and it was Bottas who led the way.

However he failed to improve with his final run as he put two wheels onto the grass in turn seven. That presented an opportunity for Mercedes to take their usual one-two – but they weren’t able to take advantage.

Heading towards turn two, Hamilton’s rear brakes locked, sending him spinning off for the second time in Q3. There was more bad news for the team as Rosberg was not far behind him and, in circumstances not unlike what happened in Monaco, he had to back off for the resulting yellow flag.

But while the Mercedes team were unable to capitalise Bottas’s team mate could. Massa’s lap was slightly scruffy, but it was clean enough for him to claim his first pole position since the 2008 season finale.

Hamilton’s failure to set a time drops him to the fifth row of the grid which he shares with Nico Hulkenberg, whose final time was deleted for running wide.

Pastor Maldonado is clear, he was talking trash about Williams at the end of 2013 and then he left :-) Ferrari maybe because they let Massa go? But they should only feel annoyed because their car isn’t good enough yet again this year.

@davidnotcoulthard@gdewilde Thanks much! That explains it. Maldo might be ruing his words now. Not too sure about Ferrari feeling annoyed. They will be pretty happy to have closed the gap against the Merc powered teams.

Massa’s performance isn’t his own doing only. The car is there and he has done extremely well to have placed it in its rightful position. Ferrari will feel annoyed for paying him while he was not doing his job right.

Not to diss them on this wonderful day for Williams and Massa, hope they make the best out the result tomorrow.

I think maldonado left because he had troubles with some of the william crew, i dont think it was something about the car perfomance, i believe he said something about it when he was leaving the team even before the americas incident.

Why would Ferrari be annoyed? If this season has proven anything, it’s the fact that Massa never lost any speed due to his accident or Hockenheim 2010 (as many people claim). Massa and Kimi were on the same level troughout their Ferrari time together and they’re both virtually identically slow compared to Alonso.

Yet more evidence, if it were needed, that the out of touch insults leveled at the new formula by F1’s naysayers, such as those of Ferrari’s Luca di Montezemelo, are nothing more than the aloof and anarchic mutterings of a team that has lost it touch. What a thrilling season. What a lens 2014 is to view previous years through: namely Felipe Massa, who many suggested (including me – who linked Felipe with a comfy Ferrari GTE drive, not a Williams race seat) had lost his former speed because he scored less than half the points of Alonso during their partnership, is now performing fabulously against his young hotly-tipped teammate; as illustrated by a GORGEOUSLY driven pole lap today. And that poses the subsidiary: if Massa is still fast, what kind of job was Alonso doing in past seasons to annihilate him so emphatically?

@evered7 – The lock-up into three cost him no time at all, in fact he took nice apex speed and a good exit. If there was anything wrong with the lap it was turn five, where he had a substantial wobble, but a lock-up doesn’t automatically mean time loss. Perhaps it was scruffy in places, but seeing a driver so efficiently jockeying the rear end in a car with a not inconsiderable amount of oversteer is always gorgeous in my eyes.

In that case, was Massa a benchmark for the Ferrari cars? In 2010 he had a good run, but in the next years he was terrible. In 2011 the car wasnt that good, in 2012 it started terrible, got better, and fell behind. In 2013 it started very well, and fell behind.

@austus – You’ve misunderstood me. Because Massa performed poorly against Alonso, but is now showing his speed against the well-regarded Bottas, thus suggesting that the job Alonso has been doing in past seasons is quite simply remarkable, and not merely the signature speed deficit between a fast driver and one past his best.

It is simply a pole position. He will not realize that in win or even 2nd place, believe me.
Bottas is not highly rated, he is boring and slow racer.
Williams has very good car but disgustingly terrible drivers. In the WCC they should be on the 2nd place. Instead they are worse than Force India, Ferrari and even McLaren. Astonishing in bad sense.
We should be happy that they have 1-2 in quali, though. I was yelling pretty loud:-)

I’m sorry but here you are clearly wrong. I’m not not saying Massa is the greates driver but he had his ups and down. Remember 2008. Bottas is still new but can still out perform Massa on a few occasions who has more experience. Maybe not the best duo but still not the worst. Vettel was supperior for the last 4 years but look at him now… it’s not all his fault of course the car is not the best. And even when he was the best it was not all him…it was also the car.

Williams had the potentintial to be a lot better in the begining of the season but they made a few mistakes. Both drivers and the entire team. But compared to the last season…this is still a wonderful result for now. And it might get better.

But I do agree with you on the Massa thing. I highly doubt we’ll see this pole materialise in to a win. I think we’ll see one Williams on the podium in third. They just always seem to cock up their strategy.

I think Bottas will need to play the holding role and do his best to keep Rosberg behind for a few laps while Massa tries to build a substantial lead.

I can’t see tyre conversation/going toe-to-toe with Mercedes as a good bet for Williams.

@slava – You can bury your head in your pillow if you like, but Bottas is highly and that is just a fact.

That frankly ignorant remark aside, whilst it is only a pole position, Massa has tended to be the marginally faster, in qualy trim at least, of the two Williams drivers and for a driver so profoundly dominated in recent years, and for driver that one might suggest is in the autumn of his career, that is somewhat unexpected. As per tomorrow, he’s not going to beat the Mercs, but with the excellent start system Williams have and the fact that Massa was fastest in the speed traps he can at least make the W05s work for it.

if Mercedes hadn’t failed it would have been another Mercedes 1-2. at the moment what is making interesting is if Mercedes have problems. like martin brundle said, there is formula Mercedes and formula 1 – take Mercedes out of the equation it is formula one, and exciting, like today was. but it should not be like that, it should be interesting at every race.

Wow – no comment about Mercedes dominance due to engine homologation for a change?

Williams and its drivers simply did a better job today, there was no “taking Mercedes out of the equation” they were there, had no apparent technical problems and neither driver was able to beat either Williams on merit over 2 runs each. That’s is what racing is all about – of course when one driver/team wins it is because someone else didn’t do good enough to beat them, it’s how competition works.

@seijakessen Right – it’s like how all those clueless F1 fans rank Senna so highly, when all we can really say is he was better than a handful of team mates. What about the other 20-25 drivers he was racing every year who might all have been better than him. Who is to say he was even in the top 50 drivers during his years in F1?

@seijakessen – Exactly, and because F1 fans (I find it amusing that your refer to these people in the third person since your have found and seemingly joined a leading blog for F1 fans) can only compare drivers in the same team, we can say a) that Alonso is better than Massa, and b) that Massa is as fast (if not marginally faster) than Bottas. Therefore there would be no giant killing performances, as with Vettel v. Ricciardo, if the highly rated Bottas was partnered with Fernando, who made beating Felipe, who is clearly still no slouch, look utterly easy and formulaic.

Lewis is not going to be at all confident in his car tomorrow after this snap oversteer problem seems to have arrived out of the blue in Q3… The car was absolutely planted all weekend until this stage. Very odd. It’s exactly what he won’t need facing a recovery drive from 9th.

It was indeed deathly quiet. I am really baffled as to how people seem to think that if we have an interesting session or race, this affects the ‘noise’ debate in any way whatsoever, as if an interesting session or race could not somehow has still taken place with engines that sound like racing engines, and not strimmers. Can someone please explain this to me?

Messed up my prediction but I’m so happy for Massa and Williams. He was always one of my favourite drivers on the current grid and Williams has so much tradition in F1 that it’s great to see them having some success again.
Also a promising grid for tomorrow – not sure if RBR will be able to recover but I expect Dan and Seb to show us some good racing in the pack. HAM will storm to the front and Ferrari also looked strong to challenge for a podium position. Really looking forward to tomorrows race.

Congrats to Williams, I am very happy. We should also take into account that it was rather Mercedes fault then winning of Williams. But anyway it is great.
Pretty sure Williams can fight for 2nd and 3d places easily in the race.
Ferrari again is terrible. They would lost at least 0.8 of a sec to the first time if Hamilton didn’t fail.

Regardless of what Merc did or did Not Do !
Ma19a and Bo77as were there 1 & 2 .
And the record books do not record this a Merc mistake ,
Its a Williams front row lockout!!!
Only 8 races in and Mercs (factory team) every pole of the year is shot to shiite and every win of the year is looking shaky as a drunk duck !
Whooooooooo
Hoooooooooo

A few more races like this and lewis and nico will stop trying to psych each other out and be trying to hold there crap together !

So Hamilton cracks under pressure, Vettel continues to get humiliated by Ricciardo, Alonso out of Raikkonen’s touch once again and Williams realising their potential. The stories of the day.
As for Massa I am really very happy for him, it is like he is born again! Way to go Felipe!